Kit Review

Straight build + Panel lining

1/400 Queen Mansa - The universal standard for size comparison — the cigarette box. Being the scale it is, it's p

The universal yardstick — size comparison with a cigarette pack.
Being the scale it is, it's pretty small. About 10cm?

A dedicated stand for the Queen Mansa and a 1/400 Full Armor Double Zeta are also included.

The included 1/400 Gundam Collection Full Armor Double Zeta

Looking up from the back and below, it's just incredibly gorgeous...

The inside of the shoulder armor is gorgeous too.

The back and the inside of the rear skirt have a lot of great spots for panel lining.

Detail on the soles and the back of the legs.

1/400 Queen Mansa - The head and upper body. The pipes connecting the torso to the shoulders are done in soft par

The head and upper body. The pipes connecting the torso to the shoulders are done in soft parts.

Same goes for the pipes connecting the front and back of the torso..

1/400 Queen Mansa - Articulation is pretty much non-existent;; The arms bend just a little.. the legs just a litt

Articulation is pretty much non-existent;;
The arms bend just a little.. the legs just a little too. (The amount bent in the photo above is the maximum.)

The only things that move significantly are the rear skirt/panel sections;;

The style of the tiny hands looks very natural.

Each hand lets you swap in a fist, open hand, or beam saber grip as you like.

There are 4 beam saber parts in total..

The small beam sabers plug in like this, under the wrist.

An action pose showdown with the Full Armor Double Zeta.

Action pose with the small beam sabers.

Action pose with the large beam sabers.

Four-sword style!

Size comparison with the 1/144 HGUC RX-78. It's nearly as big as the HGUC.

1/400 Queen Mansa - Size comparison with other Gundam Collection series kits. The Queen Mansa feels like it came

Size comparison with other Gundam Collection series kits. The Queen Mansa feels like it came out a bit oversized..;;

1/400 Queen Mansa - Straight build front shot. That color combination is just impossible to believe it's a straig

Straight build front shot. That color combination is just impossible to believe it's a straight build;;

Straight build rear shot

The third large injection-molded kit has arrived in the Gundam Collection lineup, which targets 1/400 scale. Following the White Base and the Meteor unit, the third entry is the MA Queen Mansa — and it's a completely different concept from the previous releases. It's got a somewhat bug-like appearance, but it has its fair share of fans thanks to its sheer bulk and presence.
First off, the in-universe specs put it at a massive 40 meters, which makes it a tough fit even for HGUC, let alone MG. That's probably why it ended up at 1/400 scale, coming in at a compact size of around 10cm.
This kit is technically in the completed gashaphon-style category, but in reality it's a full-on injection kit made up of around 80 parts. Most of the material is ABS — not the hard ABS we usually associate with joints, but a slightly softer ABS resin. This actually makes cleaning up gate marks pretty easy since it cuts smoothly, so the marks are barely noticeable. ^^ On top of that, there are soft parts and clear parts mixed in as well..
The key point here is that it's a pre-painted kit. And not just a little — a pretty large portion of it is painted, and fairly cleanly at that. As you can see from the runner shots, most of the runners have paint applied, and even the darker colors on the inside of the armor are all painted. So even as a straight build, it pulls off nearly 100% of the official colors — pretty impressive.
The previous 1/400 Gundam Collection White Base had some paint on it too, but it was only in spots here and there, and the quality was pretty mediocre — as you'd expect from a Bandai factory in China. The Queen Mansa, though, comes from the same Chinese factory and is a completely different story: far more painted areas and the quality is noticeably better. Some of the key panel lines are even pre-applied, and adding your own panel lining on top of that makes it look even better. The plastic surface is slightly rough, which actually means a Rotring pen alone gives you clean, crisp panel lines. I also like the joints — no polycaps to speak of, yet nothing feels loose; they're small but solid and look great.
On the downside, the molded color has a slightly different feel from regular plastic — probably because it's ABS — giving it a bit of a gashaphon vibe. And while it's billed as an HGUC-level injection figure, the articulation is really not great. T_T The arms only bend about 10 degrees, and the legs don't feel like they move much either. That said, the hip connection is a ball joint and the shoulders have some movement, so you can still pull off action poses well enough. And honestly, the sheer presence of the design itself makes up for a lot.
Overall it's a pretty unique kit, and it's interesting to see where this kind of product line — near-perfectly pre-painted injection figures — might go from here. I think the biggest question will be the price-to-size ratio, but looking at what you get, it doesn't feel expensive at all. For this price, with this level of coloring and proportions on such an impressive unit! Whether it ends up being a limited release or gets regular reprints is up to Bandai, but either way, I'd say it exceeded expectations. ^^

1/400 Queen Mansa | 2004.3 | ¥2,400

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.